An electrical connector in which a lance serving as a primary locking means is integrally formed in a housing to prevent a contact (or a terminal metal fitting) from coming off from the housing has been well known. When the known electrical connector is downsized, it becomes difficult to form the lance integrally with the correspondingly downsized housing.
Therefore, an electrical connector has been known in which a housing provided with a lance is formed as a separate member, and this lance housing is fitted to a housing main body. When the lance is downsized, a problem arises in which the function for preventing a contact from coming off is lowered. In view of this problem, a retainer serving as a secondary locking means is fitted to the housing main body. The retainer may be formed as a member separate from the housing main body and the housing lance (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-324050), or the retainer may be integrally formed with the housing main body or the lance housing with a hinge interposed therebetween (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-130561).
When fitting a lance housing to a housing main body, a lock provided in the lance housing is secured to the housing main body so that the lance housing is secured so as not to come off from a predetermined position of the housing main body. This lock is typically formed integrally with an elastically deformable member provided on the lance housing. For example, a configuration has been proposed in which locks are formed in two directions orthogonal to each other, that is, for example, in a width direction and a frontward direction (or a rearward direction) of the lance housing, so that the lance housing is more reliably secured to the housing main body.
Meanwhile, the lance housing needs to be positioned onto the housing main body with high precision. If the lance housing has a positional deviation from the housing main body, a problem arises in inserting a contact. For this reason, for example, a positioning groove (or a protrusion) is provided on the lance housing while a protrusion (or a groove) to be inserted into the positioning groove is provided on the housing main body.
However, it is occasionally difficult to secure sufficient space that allows the locks in two directions and the positioning groove to be provided with a downsized lance housing.